Christian's First Draft
by Serb
Summary: The movie that you saw is based on a book that Christian has written. But this book is a second draft of the original story. To find out what really happened at the Moulin Rouge, it is just a click away.... come and satisfy your curiousity!


**Christian's First Draft**

_Author's Note: Okey dokey, this is the first time I write a Moulin Rouge fic, and I'm not a big fan of the movie. Personally, I think the movie had some plot holes, but it's generally covered up with all other fine aspects of the movie such as camera work, decoration and music. I watched this movie and suddenly felt like making a parody on it: I like all the characters in it (including the Duke, I just can't hate him because he's played wonderfully by Richard Roxburgh), but I have warn Christian fans to be a little careful around this fic. Why didn't I warn you in the summary? Because you wouldn't bother clicking on the link and reading it, that's why! Now shut up and enjoy the show._

_None of the characters nor the original plot belongs to me, except this twisted version._

The first thing you see when you watch this movie is lights dimming, and a conductor drunkenly waving his stick high up in the air as the curtains open behind him to reveal 20th Century Fox. Then, with a thoughtful touch, appears the title of the movie "Moulin Rouge" as if through an old projector with the corny "Sound of Music" tune.

The camera zooms in, and the setting worn-down Paris (actually the Monmartre) where dwarves wearing Marilyn Manson-esque makeup sing on roof tops in creepy voices 'There was a boy….' .

We are brought in a room in one of the crappy hotels where there is this guy who sits hunched over a typewriter at his desk, and flies circle about him like vultures (because he didn't wash for a week). He wears an old hat on his head which is covered in bird poo because of the pigeons that live in this area.

The man sniffs, and takes a swig from his empty Absinthe bottle (he is flat broke, but still likes to hold cherished memories of such luxuries). He had been sitting in front of the typewriter for a couple of days now, and the toothless landlady is constantly knocking on his door to remind him to take a bath because his unbearable stench is attracting cockroaches to mate under her roof. The man blissfully ignores her.

Finally, the man starts typing these words: "I'm now going to tell you the true story of the Moulin Rouge. This is a tale about a courtesan called Satine, who sold her body to men and her soul to the devil. And may she burn in hell!"

The writer then realises that this is not very romantic, so he takes out the paper and rephrases it into: "She sold her _love_ to men….".

Smiling, he continues typing furiously: "I arrived to Monmartre from boring old England, because I was afraid that I was going to be someone. But my greatest lifelong ambition was to be a bum…. Besides being in love and a writer, of course."

Suddenly, we are ricocheted backwards back into the time when the man (properly shaved) is getting off a train at the train station and falls off the steps flat on his face. Passer-bys pretend to ignore him. Then, we are taken to the same hotel room where the young man rented the same flat from the toothless old crone. He smiles ridiculously because he has come to Monmartre to write tales about love, music and most of all: being a bum.

Suddenly, an unconscious narcoleptic Argentinean falls through his roof and onto his bed. Then, a dwarf dressed like a nun and strutting like a peacock comes through the door and stares at the young man.

'Hello, my name is Henri Marie Raymond Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa.' He says seductively, 'If you call me Shorty I'm gonna kick your ass with my fancy stwick.'

'You must be one of my fellow hobos!' the young man exclaims.

'Not hobos, but bohos.' Toulouse corrects him.

'But isn't hobos the same as bohos?' the young man says with a frown, ' it's just the H's and B's mixed around.'

'You got to be one of thwose who wants to bwe a bwum. What's your name?'

'My name is Christian!'

'Ah, Chwistian. You've got a bwum's name anyway.' Toulouse says with a dark tone, then switched to a lighter one,' We are rehwersing a pway. Wanna stand in for the Argentinean. I can't wemember his name and we need a sucker- I mean tawented pewson.'

Without hearing a word from Christian, they find themselves rehearsing for the cheap play called "The Sound of Mucus". Audrey, the current playwright, is complaining that the music isn't bad enough and that the words need to be more awful.

'I want the hairs on the audience's skin to rise up in disgust!' yells Audrey.

Satie, the composer, makes horribly screeching music by skinning cats, while Toulouse sings completely out of tune. Still there is no luck. There are no words that are terrible enough to scream in insanity. All the bohos try to contribute, but to no avail.

'The hills quake and shake!' howls Toulouse.

'The hills are chanting an eternal mantra!' the ugliest boho, who calls himself the Doctor, adds.

_The hills….. the hills…._ That is all that Christian hears until he decides to contribute with his artistic poetry.

He finally bursts into a tuneless song, 'The hills are alive with the sound of music!'

The bohos stare at him. The Argentinean, who was brought onto the Doctor's bed, stands up and exclaims 'This idiocy has cured me! It is so horrible that I stopped sleeping!'

The other bohemians look at each other.

'He's blabbing nonsense!' the Doctor whispers.

'He could be harmful to people's health!' Satie chips in.

'And he's our pewfect revenge against Zidwer!' Toulouse explains with a smirk, 'That asshowe always owercharges us with the tawts (tarts). We can twick him that we have brought the bwest pwaywright and so he makes a fool of himself in front of the inwestor.'

Audrey is insulted, because he isn't a terrible playwright as Christian, so he leaves huffily. The bohos stare leeringly at the Christian, who waves at them innocently.

'You will create the first bohemian show!' the Argentinean says proudly.

'But I don't know if I'm a true bohemian!' Christian protests.

'Do you believe in Beauty, Truth and Freedom?' asks the Doctor.

'Yes!'

'And love?' asks the Argentinean hopefully.

'Especially that!'

'Then you are a bwum. Welcome to the cwub (club) kid.' Toulouse shakes Christian's hand.

Later on, they force Christian to drink gallons of Absinthe, and then he tries to mate with the Green Fairy, but only succeeds destroying one of Toulouse's paintings, receiving a smack on the head from the midget's walking stick. The Green Fairy feels sorry for Christian, so she teleports them all to the Moulin Rouge, dressed in their dinner jackets (except Satie, who tried to flirt with her, so he was teleported in his underwear.).

Christian is surrounded by creeps, and not-so-attractive women who look about 40-50 years old. The clown people try to make him to become on of them, but he runs away to a table where the rest of the bohos sit.

He sees Harold Zidler, a fat red-haired man who performs fantastic acrobatic flips in the air, while the girls Can-Can aimlessly. Eventually, an orgy breaks out, and Christian wonders what he's doing here.

Suddenly, the lights dim, and a swing lowers down. All the men stare up, drooling upon themselves to see _her_: The Sparkling Kitsch.

She also sings a few incoherent lyrics and starts swinging madly on her trapeze, running over men who stand in her way. She produces some phoney Spanish trilling sounds as if it is a war cry and jumps upon men, singing 'Kitsch Is A Girl's Most Obvious Friend'.

In the meantime, Harold Zidler was sitting next to the Moulin Rouge's newest investor, the Duke (who was filthy rich).

'When do I get to meet the girl?' asks the Duke eagerly.

'Anytime you want to. Except when she has her period, of course, but I'm sure that passed months ago.' Assures Zidler.

The Sparkling Kitsch, also known as Satine (also very kitschy), calls out, 'Talk to me Harry Zidler, tell me all about it!'

Zidler realises that it is his cue now to appear on stage.

'Can you hand me over that yellow bucket of paint next to you?' he asks the Duke politely.

The Duke hands the bucket over, and Zidler fishes out a paintbrush from his coat pocket and dips it into the paint. Then, he ties it to the top of his cane and holds it in front of him like a pole.

'Get out of the way! Charge!' He cries with the paintbrush dangerously pointing at the audience from the end of his cane, as it "colours" anyone who doesn't get out of the way in time. Zidler laughs manically as the crowd frantically tries to escape this menace, but soon enough parts like water in front of Moses, leaving a clear way for him get to the stage.

Zidler gets on the stage as Satine gets to the climax of her song. He starts groping her in front of everyone to make men feel jealous. Then, he starts stripping in front of the public, and as everyone shuts their eyes in disgust, Satine undresses to put her new costume on (oh, the irony!).

An old pimp-woman called Marie was the one watching the show so she could tell the men that the grotesqueness has passed (she had witnessed far worse things in her life). The men decide that it is safe to resume watching the spectacle.

'The Duke is over there!' hisses Zidler to Satine.

'Where? I see two men!' Satine asks, motioning to Christian and the Duke, who are sitting at tables not far from each other.

'Oh, you and your short-sightedness!' says Zidler in an annoyed voice, not really bothering to look, 'It's the one Toulouse is trying to pick a fight with.'

Truly, while Zidler was doing his undressing spectacle, Toulouse had been trying to pick a fight with the Duke, because he mentioned the word "small". However, Christian tried to convince Toulouse that the Duke didn't say that he was "short", but since Christian said the death wish word, Toulouse rounded upon him. And that was what Satine saw.

'I'm coming rich boy!' she screams and she swims through the crowd to reach Christian. In just a matter of seconds (and getting groped by hundreds of 50-year-old men) she stands in front of him.

'Are you rich?' she asks Christian directly.

'Well, I'm rich in words and-' but he never gets to finish, as Satine pulls him to the dance floor; with her in the lead.

They twirl, dance, twirl, swoop, twirl until Christian gets sick and runs away to the men's room to throw up with Satine inviting him to meet her in "The Elephant".

So, an hour passes and Christian finds himself in the kitschiest room where even the poorest artists would cringe from the distaste. Outside, the bohos climb onto the Elephant using a rope made out of their shoelaces and cravats.

Satine enters the room dressed in her black corset and underwear that reveals her anorexic frame and shapeless legs. And it is from those legs that Christian gets turned on.

'Would you like some champagne?' asks Satine, 'It is really watered down white wine but I'm sure you won't tell the difference.'

'I promise I won't!' Christian hurriedly says, 'It's just that I want to get it over and done with.'

Insulted, Satine lays down on the bed and waits for him. But she gets something much worse.

He starts to say something about bluebirds singing in the sky, but she pounces on him in order to shut him up. Unfortunately, being turned on only makes him go worse.

'I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind…..' he sings obliviously, as Satine rolls on the floor clutching a blanket about her head in agony, 'My gift is my song…..'

Outside, the bohos are staring through the window of the Elephant in order to see some juicy scenes.

'What are they doing?' Asks the Argentinean.

'He's hitting her with his most modern poem!' Toulouse exclaims, because he was the one being held down to see what was happening. The rest of the bohos burst into laughter and they drop Toulouse to fall 10 meters below.

Meanwhile, inside the Elephant, Satine stops Christian from singing the rest of the song and she tells him, 'Listen, you're cute. But don't think that I as a Duchess will listen to your howling everyday.'

'Duchess? But I'm not a Duke!' Christian blabs innocently.

Satine grabs him by the collar and lifts him into the air angrily, 'Then give me a good reason why I shouldn't-'

She is interrupted by knock at her door and she drops Christian to fall on the floor.

'The Duke!' she squeals happily, and then notices Christian on the floor, 'You better go and hide. I don't want my image tarnished because of you.'

Christian tries to hide in the bed, but Satine drags him out and shoves him to hide behind the table. Zidler slams the door open to roar, 'Chocolate Fudge! Daddy brought you a Dukey to play with!'

He drags the Duke in by the collar, and the Duke gets turned on by seeing Satine's shapeless legs.

'The pleasure is mine, my dear,' he simpers, kissing Satine's hand.

'I'm now going up in my office in the opposite building to get my telescope so as to watch you two have sex. I'm going to take some pictures which I'm going to send to a dirty magazine and get some good Francs out of it. Don't forget the chocolate sauce: it's very popular these days. Ta-ta!' says Zidler cheerily before he slams the door behind him.

'Don't mind him. He won't send any pictures to the magazine. He will hang them up in his office,' Satine assures.

'I think you need some refreshment, my dear,' the Duke motions to the table with the drinks, which is also Christian's hiding place.

'Don't!' screams Satine, falling to her knees and hugging his waist.

'Are you going to touch me down there?' asks the Duke eagerly, 'I'm a virgin, you know, and I've been waiting for this my entire life, but I don't want to get committed just yet….'

'No. I'm going to say some poetry,' whispers Satine seductively, but once she started rephrasing Christian's poetry, any excitement the Duke fades away and in a matter of seconds he is cowering in a corner, mentally scarred.

'Oh, I'm sorry if I frightened you. Are you rich?' asks Satine bluntly.

'Y-yes,' the poor Duke stammers, 'But I don't understand what it h-has to do with-'

Satine yanks him on the bed and starts screaming for him to let the dogs out, the tiger roar and the monkey howl. Apparently, one of the things that Satine and Duke have in common is that they are zoophiles so they both get steamy in bed.

Christian, who never witnessed sex before, was wondering naively why they were starting to take their clothes off. He stares at them as a frog staring at a couple of flies, so this turns Satine off.

'You know Duke, let's just do this after the performance.' She sighs.

'Performance?' he groans, 'What performance?'

'Why, the one you're going to invest!' Satine exclaims.

'Invest!' he gasps.

'Yes. Now get out quickly before the Easter Bunny comes to flirt with me!' Satine ushers him out.

'What Easter Bunny?' he asks jealously before Satine closes the door before he has anything more to ask.

She swivels to Christian and yells at him, 'What the heck do you think you're doing you-'

But she decides that it's no use to argue with him so she pretends to faint so as to avoid him. Christian wonders what to do with her, so he drops her onto the bed.

'Perhaps I could try to do the same thing that the Duke tried to do with her?' he wonders curiously.

Luckily, the Duke comes back in.

'And one more thing, you mad woman! I didn't like the sound of your poetry-' he stops short when he notices Christian, 'You already found another?' he whimpers brokenly.

Satine stops pretending and her head snaps up to say, 'Don't jump to conclusions, my dear Duke. This is the writer who wrote the poetry verses that I recited to you. He is going to the write the play that you're going to invest!'

'Not bloody likely!' snaps Duke.

Suddenly, to save the show, the bohos crash in through the terrace, lead by Toulouse whose body was in a cast and he was in a wheelchair.

'I dwopped some 10 meters and now I dwopped in hewe!' he comments, 'We are rehewsing the pway that you awe going to inwest, Dwuke!'

Meanwhile, Zidler already ate 4 pies and was now on his fifth pie when he noticed the chaos through is telescope.

'Holy banana split dipped in pistachio and chocolate ice cream! What is going on?' he cries before running of to the rescue.

In the Elephant, Duke is demanding to know where Zidler is while he is watching the Argentinean drinking all the champagne and the Doctor is juggling wine glasses in one arm and rocking Toulouse in his wheelchair with the other. Satie is adding some of his shoelaces to the piano strings of the piano in the room, so that he could get more keys.

Zidler arrives amidst this circus and also demands what is going on. Satine explains to him that the Duke wants to invest for the play that Christian wrote.

'Alright then, can you sing some of the verses, boy?' Zidler asks Christian, but when Christian sings only one stanza Zidler stops him, 'Enough! What's your name boy?'

'Christian.'

'Hmmm. You must be a bum then,' Zidler sniffs as Christian nods eagerly.

'So what's the play?' asks Duke, not having much hope himself.

'According to the quality of the music, we'll call it "Shitacular! Shitacular!" No words are so horracular!' Zidler exclaims.

The all start dancing as they try to impress the Duke. We see the Doctor dressing up as a hippy, Toulouse being a bearded belly-dancer, Satie playing the piano with his feet, Zidler wearing a pillow on his head and making his bloated belly move by itself, Satine wearing a crown made out of playing cards and fans, and Christian just causing trouble. They even drag the Duke's manservant (slave) Warner (Bros.) into it to play and elephant. And all of this sums up to be a story taking place in India where a courtesan has to save her country from an evil maharaja.

The Duke looks upon this very suspiciously, while muttering, 'This play is awful, and I'll spend a lot of money investing it. However, if this theatre _just happens_ to burn down at the premiere, I can get a heap of money from the insurance company from this! Very well, I'll invest!'

So everybody is happy: the bohos get their revenge, the Moulin Rouge gets an investor, the Duke gets his money back and Christian is blissfully unaware of this. They could've just ended the story here!

The bohos continues the partying at the hotel, while Christian is in seclusion because he doesn't want to meet the mean fairy again from drinking. He stares out of the window, in hope that he will see Satine undress in the Elephant. But to his dismay, she starts singing - rather prettily too.

Consumed by jealousy, he runs out, and uses the bohos' shoelace rope to climb the Elephant (I'm seriously wondering why no one had tried to get into Satine's room to rape her this way before). Satine gets shocked by his appearance and demands him to leave - either by going down the shoelace rope or by jumping.

'I was staring at you from my window because I was hoping to see you naked,' Christian explaines while Satine stares at him flabbergasted,' But I found you singing and I think I'm in love with you!'

Satine keeps gingerly edging away until she comes dangerously close to the edge while Christian sings. Christian then also comes to a dangerous spot, which makes Satine scream, 'Christian, get down! I don't want to be responsible for you falling off!'

Then Christian keeps droning on how they should be lovers, how it is a fact written in the stars, how they should spend the night together….. until Satine snaps with fury, 'Alright! We will be lovers! At least I'm getting my own Toy boy.'

Christian then pounces upon her with glee, and they both fall off the edge, crashing onto the terrace of the Elephant, while in the distance Toulouse wearing ostrich feathers sings drunkenly some of Christians lyrics which causes some of the party guests to fall off the roof to attempt suicide.

The next day, Zidler announces to all tarts and workers (who are all surprisingly decently dressed) that the Moulin Rouge will be extending its business: it will not only be a brothel, but a theatre too. They will all have work harder than before to keep up the good work while the Duke supplies them with money.

Time goes by, and Duke keeps inviting Satine to dinner, but she is unfortunately preoccupied because Christian keeps locking her up in his room at the end of day and makes furious love with her. Duke finally gets sick of all this and complains to Zidler.

'She's always at it with that damn writer!' he hisses, as Zidler remembers when they signed the paperwork together. Zidler didn't really care when the Duke took the deeds of the Moulin Rouge, or when he started hysterically yelling that he didn't like his things touched (when Zidler tried to grab his privates to test his responsiveness) or when the Duke demanded that Satine will be his - Zidler became really worried when the Duke refused the offer to try one of his blueberry pies.

'Don't worry dear Duke, I'll insist she takes the night off!' Zidler promised, with one hand scratching his behind, 'by the way, Satine and Christian are making out behind you.'

'Do you think I don't know! You don't have to rub it in my face! And stay away from my privates!' snaps the Duke, turning away from him and leaving.

Zidler goes and confronts Satine that she has to meet with the Duke.

'I want my dirty pictures!' Zidler demands.

'Christian invited me and now Duke is inviting me too?' Satine sighs tiredly,' oh, what a stressful situation! I'm not that young anymore to take two men at once. Only one thing to do!' With that, she drops onto the floor in mock faint.

'Not that again Sugar Lump!' wails Zidler, 'What am I going to tell the Duke?'

'You make something up!' she hisses from the floor, before continuing to pretend.

So the night came, and nobody bothered to tell Christian about Satine. Zidler came to the Duke in the Gothic Tower and yelled with all his might, 'She's confessing!'

'You don't have to be so loud!' Duke complains.

'I tried to bring up a climax,' explains Zidler, 'she's confessing, you know, to a priest, you know, that you make her feel like a virgin, you know.'

Duke smiles devilishly and asks,' Well, that sounds rather interesting, but what are you doing here?'

'I'm going to entertain you!' exclaims Zidler, beaming.

Duke nervously laughs,' Heh, heh! You don't really need to do that….'

Too late. Zidler bursts into an operatic song and Duke tries to run away, but the dancing butlers grab him and hold him prisoner. Zidler puts on a tablecloth to look like Virgin Mary and forces the Duke to touch him in order to satisfy Zidler's fetish for saints. They twirl around in the bed, make the Duke dizzy, so he also starts singing and skipping around and trying to strangle Zidler. They end up on the table, with the closing sequence where the idiotically grinning Duke and pouting Zidler embrace each other as the lights go out, with the sound of Duke's fist connecting with Zidler's nose. (Author's Note: the actors' expressions in the movie were priceless!).

The next day, we see Satine sitting on Christian's bed in his hotel room, trying to explain to him that she was sick (which he of course, doesn't buy).

'I was sick I tell you!' says she.

'Yeah right! How come you still look so pretty? You're seeing another man aren't you? My voice isn't pretty as his is it?' whines Christian, on the verge of tears.

'Speaking of other men, you know that I have to sleep with the Duke sooner or later,' she informs him.

'How can you Satine? He's rich! He's not a glorious bum like I am!' protests Christian angrily.

Before Satine can say another word, Christian interjects, 'Listen, just sing "Come what may" and I'll come for you, or at least know that you need me!'

'Don't be foolish Christian, you know I won't sing that and make an idiot out of myself in front of the Duke. ' says Satine dryly, examining her fingernails.

'I bet you 12 Francs that you will.' Christian offers.

'Make that 15 Francs.'

'Deal!'

They shake hands on that.

Later on, we see a montage of all the good - and bad times- Christian and Satine go though: practicing for the performance (with the Argentinean becoming unconscious every once in a while, which ends him falling upon Satine's bosom), trying out the electric lights which gets Christian electrocuted and going on a picnic with the Duke. In that memory, Christian is singing out of tune while the Duke spots a little frog. Satine tries to go and see the frog, but Christian holds her to him and he sings loudly in her ear. The frog suffers from this torturous music, and the Duke kills it with his walking stick to put it out of its misery.

Finally, we come to a scene where the entire Moulin Rouge circus is practicing the final scene of the show. The music is chilling, the singing is out of tune and everything seems to go so perfectly. Nini Legs-In-The-Air is drunkenly bombarding some dirty jokes at the Duke, until the Duke finally loses his nerve when she repeats that Chrisitian and Satine are having an affair for the umpteenth time.

'I don't like this ending!' announces the Duke.

'Believe me, my dear Duke, I don't like the ending too, but imagine how much money and custard pies we would have to spend if we changed it-' drones Zidler.

'Oh, shut up already with those pies!' snaps Duke, 'This play is supposed to be crap. Why does the courtesan have to fall in love with the singing garbage collector? Why doesn't she marry the maharajah who supplies her with lifetime of kitsch and doesn't sing horribly?'

'Because she doesn't love you! She loves bums like me!' yells Christian angrily.

Silence fell. Christian didn't know what he had done, so was staring around asking, 'What?' . Duke looks sharply at Satine, who was trying to put a paper bag on her head in shame.

'Oh, I see.' Whispers the Duke, before switching to a louder tone, 'Monsieur Zidler, I want this ending rewritten by tomorrow with the courtesan choosing the maharajah and less music.'

Everybody in the hall cheers, except Christian who speaks above others, 'But we will have to start rehearsing it all over again!' Then the cast groans.

Satine takes off the paper bag from her head and says seductively, 'Why don't we discuss it over dinner?'

'Finally!' exclaims the Duke, 'I absolutely had no idea how to drag to my place all this time!'

Christian tries to talk to Satine, but she grabs onto the excuse that the show must be saved and she must "unwillingly" go to the Duke.

So night falls, Christian and the others wait in the hall while Satine goes to the Gothic Tower to work her charms on the Duke. People throw dirty looks in Christian's direction, he receives a blow from Toulouse's walking stick, no Absinthe from the Doctor and nobody wants to speak to him. Even the Argentinean comes up to him and scolds that bums like him should never fall in love with gorgeous women of the night because they will always leave him for dukes and get his shows cancelled.

However, the Argentinean feels sorry for Christian, so he walks onto the stage, announcing, 'We have a dance in the brothels of Buenos Aires.'

The Doctor tunes up his violin and plays it to a climax. Everyone waits in bated breath.

'However, I don't know it, so you won't be seeing it tonight. Instead, Nini and I will perform our famous juggling duet!' the Argentinean exclaims and Nini comes up on the stage, and they start juggling with all the stage gadgets. The backstage crew joins them and they also start juggling while Satie conducts the orchestra to play circus music. Everybody, including Christian have a good time, except a black man called Chocolat, who sneaks out of here to watch Duke and Satine smut.

Meanwhile, up in the Gothic Tower, Satine is wearing a revealing dress which is quite modern for those times and the Duke is wearing a dressing gown as if he had just gotten out of bed. They chat, they kiss and they have dinner at a huge table. Satine grabs the chicken legs and gnaws at them while the Duke is eating grapes and oranges with a knife and fork.

Finally, after watching for quite a long time how they eat they food in slow motion, the Duke stands up and then drags Satine to the mirror. He opens a velvet box and gets out beautiful, yet tastefully kitschy neckpiece, and fastens it around Satine's neck until she almost chokes.

'Be mine!' Duke demands, 'You won't have to clean the dishes, or wash the floors or do anything else. I can make my slaves do that!'

'I'd really like to, but what about the ending of the play?' Satine asks.

'I'm too bored to go through it again, so let Zidler keep his crappy ending,' Duke says simply.

They go out onto the terrace because Satine is feeling light-headed from the tight neckpiece so they get some fresh air. The Duke sees it as a good moment to make out, while Satine stares 20 meters below. She spots Christian who went out to take a whiz, but he notices her up there. He stares at her while pissing against the Gothic Tower wall.

'Come what may…..' she ponders out loud.

'What did you say, my dear?' asks the Duke curiously.

'Oh no!' gasps she.

'No?' asks Duke incredulously.

'I'm going to lose 15 Francs to an idiot!' groans she, as she runs inside.

Duke looks down and spots Christian. He then goes back inside, and shuts the window behind him.

Satine now laughs nervously, before saying, 'My dear Duke….'

'Silence! I thought that you loved me! Not that it really matters now but you won't sleep with now!' howl Duke.

'Why shouldn't I?' defends Satine.

'Really?' asks Duke hopefully.

Satine nods furiously and hints, 'Let's play "rape the courtesan"!'

So they play about: she runs around the room, throws things at him, he gets her and throws her on the floor, then picks her up, gropes her, tears her clothes off while singing 'Why does my heart cry….' And throws her onto the bed. Unfortunately, Chocolat comes in at this moment, so he doesn't know what is happening. He thinks that the Duke really wants to rape her, and even though he likes rough porn, he promised Christian that he would protect Satine. So he reluctantly knocks out the Duke.

'What are you doing, you idiot?' screeches Satine.

'I thought that, I thought that….' Mumbles Chocolat.

'Is he dead?' asks Satine.

'Yes, but he's still breathing!' says Chocolat.

'Heck, I won't be tried for murder! I'm going to get out of here, dye my hair and change my identity!' says Satine, as she hurriedly gets out of here.

However, Chocolate, just grabs her hand and drags her out of there.

In Christian's apartment, Christian had arrived dead drunk from the party and he had fallen asleep slumped on the balcony rail. The door opens and Chocolat and Satine rush in. Chirtian's head snaps up.

'What took you so long?' demands Christian.

'I was with the Duke and when I saw you from the balcony, I screwed everything up!' Satine grumbles.

'What do you mean?' asks Christian suspiciously.

'The Duke has "duked" her!' blurts Chocolat.

'What does that mean?' asks Christian.

'Oh, he just attempted to rape her,' says Chocolat simply.

At this, Christian exclaims, 'That's it! We're getting out of here honey! The Duke may send someone to kill me-I mean us!'

Before Satine could say something, Christian turns to Chocolat, 'Chocolat, help Satine get her things.'

But Chocolat wasn't impressed, 'What did you just call me?'

'What? Isn't Chocolat your name?'

'Are you using my name for racist purposes?' threatens Chocolat, looming over Christian, 'Are you making fun of me because I'm _black_?'

'I think it's cool to be black!' exclaims Christian, 'I just can from England where people are all white and this is the first time I see a black person-'

A fight eventually ensues, because Chocolat didn't like Christian's cheery racist disposition.

We see Satine in her room, packing her things, when Zidler barges in through her door when she is undressing. This is all planned, of course, because he was looking through the keyhole when to pop in at the most importune moment.

'Choco Puff! Where are you going?' he asks innocently.

'I'm going to be tried for murder!' wails Satine, 'I killed the Duke!'

'In the name of Saint Pie the Duke's not dead! Don't worry, he's still going to shower you with kitsch!' beams Zidler.

'That's great! I thought I really did it, and it's all that cute writer's fault!' complains Satine.

'You must make something up,' says Zidler.

'Shall I pretend to faint again?' offers Satine.

'No! Tell him that you chose the Duke over him and that he has to stay away or the Duke will shove his stick up the boy's bum.'

'And what if he doesn't?'

'Make sure you hurt him.'

'Alright then….' Says Satine understandingly.

'No seriously, I literally mean that you hurt him. Throw a vase or a pigeon at him or something.'

So Satine dresses up in her prettiest dress for this occasion. Zidler goes around singing that the show must go on, and trips over the curtains that were mended over by some old ladies and falls down the stage steps. Also, the crystal chandelier drops on his head, but his trampoline belly saves him from serious harm.

Satine comes to Christian's apartment while Christian is fiddling with a bird cage.

'Great, you're here! Now help me with this cage. When we run away we will need to eat something while we live on the streets, so I caught some pigeons to eat, even though they may have bird flu….' Christian talks on.

Satine, who has no idea what bird flu is because it didn't exist back then (nowadays it had spread rapidly throughout Europe and Asia and it will only be a matter of time until it reaches America) breaks in Christian's monologue to say, 'I'm leaving you for the Duke. If you search for me, the Duke will shove his stick up your bum.'

Christian grimaces, 'But that is painful!' When he sees Satine leaving, he grabs her hand, blurting out, 'Don't leave me Satine!'

So Satine remembers Zidler's advice and uses it: she throws a vase, a pigeon and even his typewriter at Christian until he lets go and she runs away. Christian then mopes around and tries to reach her at the gates of Moulin Rouge but he gets beaten up the bouncers and Satine pretends not to notice him.

So eventually we see Christian sitting in his bed and staring at a smudge on his wall. Toulouse comes to visit him to say, 'Now you really look like a bum.' And hit him on the head.

Christian has enough. He has been made an idiot of so many times, but he still thinks that Satine loves him. So he robs his boho friends while they were sleeping, sells his typewriter and goes to the Moulin Rouge on premiere night (they didn't even give him a ticket to see his own show!). He climbs in through the window that is usually used to throw rubbish out of and crawls to the backstage.

In the meantime, the show is horrible. There is terrible acting, mismatched costumes, totally disorganised, and the Duke sits at the first row with a bouquet of roses for Satine. Everybody else in the audience brought rotten eggs and tomatoes to throw at the performers at the end of the show. The actors on the stage keep running into each other, Chocolat keeps saying that this is very racist because they painted him blue, and amidst this chaos rises Satine in a very tasteless outfit. She sings prettily, dances seductively; the Duke starts pleasing himself, while Zidler stares straight at him and waves to the audience from his place on stage.

Act one finishes, and Satine goes to her room to get a new costume. Christian jumps out of the closet, scaring the daylights out of her and demands to know why does she still chose the Duke instead of him. He drags around wherever she goes like a tick on a dog, even when the doors open for her to appear on stage. Everybody stares a Christian at what he's doing up there, and Christian wonders what excuse he should give.

He yells in front of the audience, 'Don't sleep with this whore! She slept with me, and now she left me for the Duke who could pay her more. But you can call me anytime you want!'

With these words, Christian jumps off the stage and walks off. While he was holding his speech, Touluse remembered his lines and said them out loud, ' The greatest thing you ever learn is just to be rich and no one to be richer than you!'

On any other circumstance, these words would just make the situation worse. But since this isn't any other situation, so Christian suddenly falls back in love with Satine and then rushes back on stage and glomps her.

Satie starts playing some rock-&-roll music, the Doctor and the Agrentinean drag Warner on stage and start beating him up uselessly. Satie runs up on stage for absolutely no reason and starts ripping his clothes off. Christian and Satine sing out of tune, and Zidler sits in a corner and eats his Black Forest cake. The Duke is so ashamed that he tries to escape the theatre, but Zidler remembers something and grabs a gun out of his pocket. He throws the gun, and it falls next to the Duke. The Duke casually picks it up, and aims at the lovers, but he slips on a banana peel (how did it get there?) and the gun flies out of the window, hitting the Eiffel Tower. The tower shudders, and falls over the French-English Channel, hitting Big Ben. Big Ben then falls into the sea, causing gigantic waves on the Atlantic Ocean to drown the Statue of Liberty in USA on the other side of the world.

In the Moulin Rouge, the curtain falls, and the actors have a party by beating Christian up. As the audience chants outside for the actors to reappear, Christian pulls Satine by the hand so 'the audience can throw rotten tomatoes at us while we are together'.

However, Satine gets sick of this, so she pretends to faint again. Christian stares down at her and then thinks that she is dead. He falls to his knees, starts screaming, blubbering and crying.

Zidler tries to approach him with, 'Christian, she's not dead-'

'Shut up! When I say she's dead, she's **dead**! I want to preserve this memory of this wonderful angel whose wings had been butchered off by God!' Christian whimpers.

Then, the Duke appears out of the shadows of the backstage, saying casually, 'My dear, are you still up for the dinner date tonight?'

Satine's head snaps up, and she pushes Christian aside to stand up and to happily, ' Let's go, my dear Duke!'

'But-but-' Christian stammers as he sees Satine and the Duke walk out arm in arm, 'what about me? Isn't love supposed to overcome all obstacles?'

Toulouse comes up to Christian, and hugs him about the waist, 'In the real world, it's quite the opposite.' Toulouse whispers sentimentally, before snapping, 'Now get out of here you bum!'

Christian gets kicked out of the Moulin Rouge onto the street. He smiled happily before yelling joyfully, 'I'm finally a bum! Woohooo!'

So everything went well: the theatre burned down so the Duke got his insurance money, Warner became the owner of a rivalling movie studio, Satine got her kitschy stuff and got married to the Duke, Zidler founded a chain of chocolateries, Toulouse got rich from his paintings, Satie composed some music, the Doctor finally got a job, the Argentinean learned how to dance and the whores at the Moulin Rouge remained whores.

So now the camera goes to the future where we see the "modern day" Christian finishing his story.

"So this story is about a love. A love that never even existed. The end." Christian finishes.

He smiles and looks at his work. It is finally finished, and he reads over it. But as pages go by, his smile fades: it seems here that _he_ was the one who was the idiot all the time!

He has to rewrite it! But what could he say?

'Yes!' he exclaims, standing up after days of sitting, making his back crick,' Ouch!' He sits back down, and even more flies swarm at him, 'I will rewrite this story that Satine was truly in love with me, that I had a beautiful voice, the Duke was stupid and evil, Zidler was a kind pimp (which almost never happens in real world) and the bohos were my closest, most understanding friends. Oh, and my play _did not_ stink!'

He sits back down at his typewriter. He then turns to the camera to stare at us.

'Ok, conductor man, let it roll!' these are his last words, as the movie starts all over again to show that story as we all know it.

The End

_Author's Note: Whew! I finally finished it! And today is the Orthodox Easter according to the old calendar, so Happy Easter! I repeat, I do not hate Christian, but as I watched the movie, he just looked to innocent and naïve to be able to survive in such a world. Oh well, will you be kind enough to review? I'm immune to flames!_


End file.
